AFRICA – The African Development Bank (AfDB) has appointed a group of renowned experts to the board of a continental initiative to mobilize financing for resilience to the negative impacts of climate change known as Adaptation Benefits Mechanism (ABM).
The Bank established the interim executive board of the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism (ABM) on early October 2019 and the newly formed ABM board is being assisted by an interim secretariat.
The secretariat is placed in the Bank’s Climate Change and Green Growth department, headed by the director Dr. Anthony Nyong.
“We have on board some of the brightest minds in the climate change world, with tons of experience in different areas and with different stakeholder groups for ABM,” Dr. Nyong said.
“They have the noble and pioneering task of convincing the world that adaptation action, just like mitigation action, has value and should be rewarded,” he added noting that he was “ proud of the excellent composition of the ABM board, its regional distribution and full gender equality.”
The board according to a press statement by AfDB is comprised of top environmental experts drawn from all parts of the continent.
The members are Evelyne Batamuliza from Rwanda, Namibia’s Louise Helen Brown, Luc Gnacadja from Benin, Swiss climate policy expert Dr. Axel Michaelowa, Senegal’s Daouda Ben Oumar Ndiaye,Doreen Mnyulwa from Zimbabwe, Morocco’s Fatima-Zahra Taibi, and Ethiopia’s Assefa Tofu
The ABM aims to mobilize public and private sector finance for enhanced climate change resilience and adaptation by creating a new asset – certified adaptation benefits.
The mechanism will assist developing countries with meeting climate change needs and priorities for adaptation set out in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement particularly those requiring international cooperation.
During the pilot phase, the AfDB and partners will seek funding from various sources to realize multiple small-scale resilience projects to test the mechanism on the ground.
The demonstration projects will be used to develop methodologies for delivery of adaptation benefits, verify the outcomes and prove the effectiveness of ABM for mobilizing new adaptation finance for replication.
The concept of the ABM was developed by the African Development Bank with the support of the Climate Investment Funds, in collaboration with the governments of Uganda and Cote d’Ivoire and various stakeholders and is potentially applicable in all countries.